Sunday, July 15, 2007

Caveat: Funhouse Fortean Conspiracist Dr. Steven Misrach

Forteans are Noams on a spiritual quest, and their canon is hot air with footnotes. On the recommendation of a reader who wanted to know what I thought, I took a look at Dr. Steven Misrach's writing (only had glancing knowledge of it for the past ten years), and pretty much agree with the evaluation below. Never met a Fortean who wasn't an errant fantasist, without exception. Dr. Misrach is one more of these Fortean leftling loons polluting the research community with capricious essays written in a "smart" style. Look, these are dire times, people are dying - yet many "researchers" out there are lost in the funhouse. We can't afford any longer to indulge our childhood dreams. Fascism is breathing down our necks.The victims know this, but the "educated"/wilfully-ignorant who think themselves unaffected are Good Germans, despite all the liberal trappings, and the lunacy is dissociative armor, an earmark of Noamism. Fascism eats ALL of its children, even those who re-invent the world to suit their emotional needs. "Cyberanthropology" is Dr. Misrach's life work - how the word trips off the tongue ...

How pretentious.

- AC

http://priory-of-sion.com/posd/posmis.html

Dr Steven Mizrach, Professor of Anthropology at a Florida University, a Fortean, a believer in Flying Saucers and a Jewish American, has several online articles about the Priory of Sion. His stance concerning it can only be described as being severely gullible. The various silly claims linking the Priory of Sion with world politics he is prepared to take quite seriously ("If it really exists, it may be one of the most powerful secret societies of all time."). Steven Mizrach never mentions the anti-semitic nature of Pierre Plantard. Mizrach's pattern of behaviour on the ‘Priory of Sion Mailing List’ was to take a peek at what was written in The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail and in The Messianic Legacy before committing himself to any conclusive comments in his messages about the Priory of Sion. He seems to accept that the Alpha Galates were founded by Georges Monti (only on Richardson's say-so) and that Monti was Péladan's Secretary (which needs verifying).

The ‘Constitution de la Rose-Croix: le Temple et le Graal’ [10] reveals that Joséphin Péladan was a Conservative Catholic who believed in the True Presence in the Eucharist and who revered Joseph of Arimathea, Hugues de Payens and Dante. Péladan certainly aimed at transforming society by integrating the mystical into it through works of Art, Plays and Music (Robert Richardson was correct about this point). The activities of Joséphin ‘Sar’ Péladan complement the Tradition of the Grand Occident nicely.

Steven Mizrach also has a high regard for Maurice Barrès, without ever mentioning his Nationalism and anti-semitism:

The Nancy Program

http://www.cooper.edu/humanities/core/hss3/m_barres.html

An article in the Historical Dictionary of the Third French Republic 1870-1940 [11] places the name of Maurice Barrès alongside Charles Maurras (Action Française) and Edouard Drumont (owner of the anti-semitic newspaper, La Libre Parole and author of the best-selling book, La France juive).

Steven Mizrach makes the most basic mistakes about the Priory of Sion, claiming that it registered its existence in 1956 in ‘Annemasse’ – when in actual fact this was done at St Julien-en-Genevois:

http://priory-of-sion.com/psp/posd/regdoc.html

Here lies the historical evidence that the Priory of Sion was founded in 1956 and named after the nearby hill to Saint Julien-en-Genevois called Mont Sion – and had nothing whatever to do with the ‘Sion’ in Jerusalem – the alleged ‘history’ of the Priory of Sion dating from the period of the Crusades and Godfrey de Bouillon as mentioned in the Priory Documents is a historical fiction concocted by Pierre Plantard during the 1960s – and here again, Steven Mizrach refuses to comment upon the virulent anti-semitism of Godfrey de Bouillon (and this ‘history’ was revoked, rejected and replaced by another ‘Priory of Sion history’ concocted by Pierre Plantard during the late 1980s/early 1990s).

Steven Mizrach claims that the Priory of Sion is ultimately linked to the 19th century Parisian artistic circles the Symbolists and the Surrealists [12] – without providing the slightest bit of historical evidence to support that theory: so where does it originate from? We know that Philippe de Chérisey was interested in surrealism, and his surrealist ideas found expression in the Priory Documents that were composed by him – but this cannot be used as ‘evidence’ that the Priory of Sion has its origins in the Surrealist Art Movements of 19th century France! And Philippe de Chérisey was not even connected with Plantard's activities before the early 1960s. So this particular theory by Steven Mizrach is very easy to debunk.

Pierre Plantard's main thrust lay in the field of genealogies, not in surrealism, and in his claim to be descended from Dagobert II [13]. Plantard was a Merovingian Pretender and Philippe de Chérisey assisted Plantard with his deceptions – and because Philippe de Chérisey was a lover of surrealism he decorated his support for Plantard in surrealist form. That's all it amounts to. The "parchments" we know were concocted by Philippe de Chérisey at the request of Pierre Plantard [14] – and Philippe de Chérisey was entitled to a share of the profits from the sales of Gérard de Sède's 1967 book L'Or de Rennes for providing the "parchments". The book contract contains the name of Philippe de Chérisey [15].

Steven Mizrach still seems to cling to the List of Grand Masters of the Priory of Sion as given in the Dossiers Secrets d'Henri Lobineau (1967) and that the Priory had links with the Knights Templar – despite the fact that Plantard had scrapped both these claims during the late 1980s and had replaced them with a new set of beliefs: a new List of Grand Masters of the Priory of Sion was produced with it being linked with the ‘Children of St Vincent’ instead of with the Knights Templar. [16] Pierre Plantard had also denounced Philippe Toscan, the author of the Dossiers Secrets as someone who had concocted everything under the influence of LSD. [17] Steven Mizrach does not seem to be interested in any of this.